Favorite BIG #1 HITS Through the Years: 1962 Pop

Great news at work today: I get another two-month vacation this summer. BETTER news: I’m working so much overtime this week I’ll pretty much have the vacation paid for by next Friday! Let’s celebrate with another big #1 hit single. I’m picking a #1 hit from each of the first 25 years in my life. Here’s the next Billboard chart-topper.
1962 (Pop): Breaking Up is Hard to Do - Neil Sedaka
I may sneak up into the attic late at night to play some guilty pleasure music like Phil Collins or Toto, but I’ll blast Neil Sedaka with my windows down at a stop light. I love Neil Sedaka’s music.
This was a top ten hit twice, 13 years apart, in two distinct versions. This version, which hit #1 in 1962, was the typical happy, upbeat Neil Sedaka pop that everyone was used to. In contrast, the 1975 version was a slow, almost jazzy, ballad. Sedaka said that the 1975 version is how he originally wrote the song, but the RCA brass didn’t think it fit in with his “style” and urged him to do the song with a more upbeat tempo.
Score one for RCA: the song went to #1. However, the slower version also hit the top ten in the “comeback” era of the mid-70s, proving Sedaka wasn’t wrong, either.
When I saw Sedaka a few years ago, he did BOTH versions: the upbeat version during the main part of the show, and the slow version as an encore.
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield
Recorded by Neil Sedaka
Released as a single, 1962
#1 for two weeks
Do do do down doobie-doo down down: